Prometheus Rising Studios   Ben Mininberg's models, toy customs, and design work.

Ok, had a nice sunny day and was able to redo the photos for this guy.  Mechabot: A Hero Reforged is a project by Go Hero, and is designed to capture all of the zaniness and classic funk of 70’s Super Robot shows, and Mechabot is the titular hero machine.  Mechabot is equipped with the usual gamut of Super Robot equipment, including Super X1 Alloy Plating, Nova Ray Emitters, and the prominent Wing Blade.  Mechabot is designed to combat a growing Sea Monster thread, so a lot of his design elements, like the shark-esque hands and wingblade fin draw from nautical inspiration, giving Mechabot a unique flair among similarly designed Super Robots.  The Mechabot toy is a vinyl release with fantastic articulation for a vinyl toy, including cleverly cut hip, ankle, and elbow swivels that allow Mechabot to do a variety of action poses!

On to the custom… out of the bag, Mechabot is smooth sleek silver, with matte black and gloss metallic blue.  I wanted my Mechabot to look a bit more ‘used’, and set to the task of adding variation and interest to this sleek design.  When dealing with Super Robots, there aren’t a lot of panel lines, hard edges, or greeblie details to work with, so I decided to use color variation instead to add interest, much like when doing solid-colored tank models.  The first thing I did was add a great deal of chipping and paint wear, using greys for the blue and black parts, and GW Boltgun Metal for the silver.  I broke out the oil paints and started adding localized color filters of yellow ochre, multiple browns, black, white, and blue to all the silver surfaces, to get the worn metal weathering effect I was after.  Acrylic paints were used to add rust spots, and oil paints were used to add rust streaking from the larger dings (I don’t really know if Super X1 Alloy rusts, but oh well).  The oil and grease streaking were done with Tamiya and Valeijo Smokes… Tamiya’s is more black, and Valeijo’s is more brown.  The Mechabot logo written in the Kanji (I think?) from the packaging was done with a super-fine brush and acrylics.  From there I went to applying sealer, starting with a coat of Future first, so that I would have a nice neutral acrylic barrier between anything harsher and the vinyl underneath.  From there I used clear finishes to add more interest to the different surfaces on Mechabot.  The black parts were coated with dead flat artists’ matte varnish, and the silver metal bits were finished with Valeijo Satin.  I left the blue bits Future shiny to make the metallic finish pop.  I then went in and repainted many of the chips and dings in the blue bits and the rust spots I added to the silver with the matte varnish to add contrast to them.